Amazon will lay off employees in the US, Canada and Costa Rica by the end of the day

Jan 18 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc ( AMZN.O ) will cut some jobs in the United States, Canada and Costa Rica by the end of Wednesday as part of a plan to lay off 18,000 employees, the e-commerce giant said in a memo to staff seen by Reuters.

The layoffs are the latest in the U.S. tech sector, with companies trimming their bloated workforces and slashing costs to reverse pandemic-era excesses and prepare for a worsening global economy.

The company is laying off 2,300 employees in Seattle and Bellevue, according to an update on the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) website. The US Labor Code requires companies planning a mass layoff to inform employees 60 days before the closing.

Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy said earlier this month that the cuts, about 6% of the company’s roughly 300,000 corporate employees, would mostly affect e-commerce and human resources. read more

Microsoft ( MSFT.O ) said earlier on Wednesday it would cut about 10,000 jobs and take a $1.2 billion charge. read more

Reporting by Tiyashi Datta, Eva Mathews and Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Shinjini Ganguli and Uttaresh.V

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